Dinner
by Hikari Shiroi Midori
Summary: Onodera Ritsu found himself in a pinch. Not only had his mother made him attend a family gathering he really would have much rather avoided attending but also had she, for whatever reason possible, done the trick and invited one Takano Masamune along on an event that could quite possibly be Onodera s worst nightmare yet. /Lots of humour, fun, fluff and insanity;so basically SH


**So, after two years of silence on my part, I finally decided it was time to give out a sign of life here and at long last upload this one-shot that´s been dwelling around on my computer for like almost two years by now.**

**Actually I had first planned on submitting this fanfiction, well, a translated version I did of it, at a convention last February but due to some complications it didn´t work out... So I thought of submitting it to the next con. Didn´t work out either... Anyways, so this is actually the first time anyone, aside from my best friend who I asked for an impression on it back then, will be able to read this.**

**I hope you guys like and have fun with it- I certainly had fun enough writing it~ xD**

Dinner

It was quiet. No, not quiet. It was utter silence that filled the spacious room. People had stopped their chatting, the clinkers of tableware against plates suddenly ceased to complete stillness, many an expression had instantly frozen in surprise, some in shock even.

Onodera Ritsu was in a pinch. Even that wasn´t enough to describe the situation he was in. His mother - one evening calling him for the hundredth time that day, and him only picking up so she would let him die on the floor in peace after returning home having just somewhat survived another end of the cycle - had invited him to a dinner in some luxurious restaurant where they had had many family gatherings for the past years. Well, she hadn´t been quite inviting him. It was more like him being his high school student self again and her demanding him going whether he wanted it or not.

As bad as that might already be the worst part of it all was that when his mother had tried to visit him a couple of weeks ago, she had been waiting right in front of his door and started scolding him about how he should get in touch with his family more often. And it being the inevitable to happen, at some point when she had stopped her ranting to remember she did indeed need to breath every once in a while, she noticed that her dear son, much too gone already to hear any more of her words, had not been coming up to his apartment alone. This is how Onodera´s mother came to know one Takano Masamune who somehow ended up in said woman´s graces. After but a short meeting and a little bit of chatting which Onodera himself had tried to end ever since they started talking about how unreliable he could be when it came to keeping up with his social contacts, she somehow - in a way Onodera could not comprehend - decided she liked the editor-in-chief from hell.

Thus Onodera had been charged with the task of bringing along the man that was currently regarding him with a look on his face that was a mixture of surprise, astonishment and being rendered utterly speechless. An expression Onodera would have never thought to be seen on the one man who had to always be so smart about everything. It was almost funny. If he hadn´t been in the situation he found himself to have to cope with at the moment.

A mere second ago the whole restaurant had been so full of noise and voices that tried to deafen each other to make themselves be heard by their neighbours. Waiters had been advising their customers on which wine best to choose with way too many and exasperated gestures than Onodera thought needed. That, actually, had only been the last thing to set him off.

He had practically rushed to this place right after getting off work with Takano close on his trail, much to his chagrin. The other man had teased him, as usual, on the whole ride. Onodera then had already given up any hope the young editor had kept about getting past this without any big fuss. What had made his mood drop before they even entered the building were Takano´s snug comments about how this seemed to him like getting to know the parents-in-law. If he hadn´t been trying to keep his cool Onodera would have probably yelled at him that time already.

So his already cranky mood wasn´t quite the help when they finally found his mother´s table. It had been huge. A big, long table, fifteen or so seats at it already taken by relatives Onodera knew or didn´t know all too well. There was even his uncle he hadn´t seen since New Years along with his cousins... His very talk active cousins he had remembered. Getting through the greeting procedure himself had been tough enough with everyone prying about his new job, new apartment and some of the more inconsiderate asking why he looked like the walking dead.

That and everyone questioning him about what his relations to Takano were had been annoying enough but not so hard to handle. However, Onodera did not believe his eyes when his mother smilingly and chit-chatting with everyone led them to their seats. They had been placed near his mother´s and father´s seats at the far end of the table, which wasn´t really unusual. Takano had been told to sit on the right hand side of the younger male since the one to his left was already taken. The seat that was usually Onodera´s was being occupied by the one person he had mostly expected but least wanted to be put into the situation: Kohinata An.

When Onodera had sat down she smiled at him warily. He gave her a small smile in reply none of either really knowing what to say or to do there. It had only been two weeks since An had had her suspicions about him and Takano... dating confirmed.

There were times he really wanted to murder his mother.

Not only was she making the whole break-up of their betrothal even harder for both of them but had she now done the trick and involved Takano into the whole affair. Takano didn´t let it look through to others but Onodera knew he was more than just bothered by having the one he loved seated besides his hopefully son going-to-be ex-fiancée.

And still that would not be enough for his mother. He knew how difficult it was to understand for his parents that he refused to marry the girl who had loved him ever since they were in middle school. No matter how often he said he couldn´t love her as more than a friend and a sibling, his mother pestered him about getting back together with her. That was the reason Onodera so rarely talked to his mother on the phone. She would always start with the same old topic not noticing, perhaps even not caring how sick she made him feel by it.

Onodera had been getting uneasier as conversations progressed. At first things looked up as he talked about some business related topics with his dad. He really missed their casual talks about editing and both of them almost forgot that they were from two different companies - rivals in some sense - while chatting on and on. Not that they would let their relationship be spoiled by "idle" facts but they had to make sure they didn´t go too deep into certain cases.

The conversation started turning tides again when the answer to the question that had been bugging his relatives the whole time became inevitable. He had explained right from the very start that they were nothing more than a boss and a co-worker and that his mother had only invited him because she happened to meet him. Which was to Onodera still the case since Takano had no other choice but to go with it, seeing as this was a gathering of a family he didn´t belong to.

Onodera´s relatives however thought otherwise of it. After one of them had picked up the topic again soon more joined in until the whole table was taken in by it.

If it hadn´t already, Onodera´s head would have started aching at that point.

The voices cheerily blabbering away at the tables around them grew louder. The noise of plates and clanging glasses became clearer in his ears. The accusations Onodera´s relatives threw at him became even more exaggerated and annoying. When they didn´t stop after a quarter of an hour afterwards Onodera rubbed his head to lessen the pain at least a little bit. Takano, who had had up until then had no say in the whole affair seemed to notice the stress building up in the younger and quite unnoticeable by everyone else around them - despite their having their gazes practically glued to the men in question - gave his hand a small, calming squeeze that was almost soothing to the smaller editor.

He got agitated again, though, when An leaned over to him with a concerned expression asking whether he was feeling well. Now, it hadn´t been her fault since all she had done was being considerate of him. But Onodera really couldn´t take the almost thrilled conversations that started with guesses about An´s and his relationship much longer than this. His family had always consisted of people who somehow loved to waste their time on meaningless gossip but that evening they had picked in their actions of proving it.

Onodera had been doing his utmost to ignore his surroundings knowing fully well that he couldn´t yell at them. For one it would make them more ambitious and for another he would get scolded afterwards by his mother and he really could live short of that now- until said woman made the one mistake of the evening that made Onodera indifferent to any consequences his actions might cause that night.

She was tapping her fingers on the table irritably and said: "As if anyone other than An-chan could ever be more to him than a friend."

Before Onodera even knew himself what was happening he had clenched his teeth, his fists and yelled without control over the level of his voice: "He´s my boyfriend!"

And this is how Onodera Ritsu ended up not only admitting to Takano Masamune, the man who had fulfilled and broken his heart in just a few months so many years ago, the one who had been so hell-bent on making fall for him again, the person who he least wanted to know his true feelings, but also to the whole of his stunned family and part of the high society of Tokyo that night that he was dating another man.

After this... icy silence had been broken by the other customers resuming their idle chats as if nothing had happened, Onodera´s relatives started shouting and yelling at him, An looked mortified out of her mind for being publicly dumped by her long year fiancé for a man and to make matters worse Onodera caught a glimpse of his mother standing at the table frozen in utter shock at the revelation. It almost looked like she was about to faint but just as he wanted to go to her, a relative of his got up yelling and shouting, while waiters tried to calm the angry venting. Out of nowhere Onodera suddenly heard loud sobs and the next thing he knew was An still sitting next to him crying her heart out. This caused everyone to get even more aggravated, blaming him for the mess.

Onodera was trying hard to get the situation under control turning around to ask Takano for some help but the editor-in-chief seemed to be the only one who hadn´t awoken from his stupor yet. That quickly changed as-

_Riiiing!_

"Holy shit!", Onodera cursed, his heart pounding hard against his rib cage, ears ringing. His ears? Was it really that that was... He realized that the ringing hadn´t been in his head only as he blinked against the harsh light. Expecting another verbal assault by his relatives he looked around alarmed to where it might come from now- until he realized that there where no relatives to be attacked by. In fact, there was no one but him. Which wasn´t all that surprising after Onodera finally noticed that he was in his bed room.

_Don´t tell me... _He sat on his bed for a while trying to process his thoughts. _It had... all been a dream? It had?_ The longer he turned the thought over the calmer he grew, however, his embarrassment about his dream´s contents made him flustered all too quickly again. He couldn´t believe what he had just dreamed up. Had he really been so out of it last night that he had started fantasizing about something like that unconsciously?

Sighing Onodera considered himself lucky that no one had been there to hear him scream awake. He tapped for the alarm clock on his bedside table and turned it off since the buzzing wasn´t really helping his growing head ache from the mortification. He rested the other hand on his mattress to have better support while getting up but froze at the contact.

When he looked over he witnessed the scene he had dreaded to see the most. Next to him there was a now wide awake Takano staring at him. The first thing besides his expression Onodera noticed was that he wasn´t wearing a shirt. He blanched.

"W-w-w-what are you doing in my apartment?!", he stammered.

Takano in return only blinked groggily and set up, rubbing the back of his head and yawned. "What do you think, baka? Until just now I was sleeping for the first time in days."

"T-that´s not what I meant!"

Takano gave him an unimpressed look. "You weren´t drunk so don´t play dump."

Onodera blushed so hard at the man´s words he was almost deafened by the sound of his blood rushing through his head. He did remember. It all came back one piece at a time. And the more he remembered the more he wanted to forget.

The younger male had been consumed by his inwardly venting at himself that he had almost forgotten this all too familiar presence besides him. That´s when Takano said: "So? Yesterday you said something about your mother inviting me to some gathering thing of yours."

**Hikari Shiroi Midori**

**A/N: **So, what d´you say? xD I thought this was a pretty nice note to end this story on. Hopefully somebody agrees? oO Anyway, I just hope you guys liked it and enjoyed the time you spent reading! n_n

On a side note, this story was actually inspired by a real life experience of mine... Nah, don´t worry, it wasn´t like that, but a bit similar xD So I thought, what if...? And here you are now! My first– but hopefully not last?- Sekaiichi Hatsukoi fanfiction xD

I´m open for suggestions!~ See you guys around n_n

**BTW!** This last note here is to all those who have read, reviewed and/or faved my Junjou Romantica ffs (Childhood Friend, Exhaustion). I thank you so much for doing so! And also for hanging in there and (maybe still) waiting for Childhood Friend to continue! It really means so much to me! n_n I just wanted to let you know I´m on it! XD Okay, that really was the last one now. Really.


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